The Iowa planThe Corner links to this story in the Washington Post about the Democratic presidential candidates campaigning in Iowa. The only one missing was Joe Lieberman, who was in California. Which led to this thought: why doesn't one of the candidates smarten up and abandon Iowa? Consider the last election: Al Gore and George Bush were the favorites early. Gore had only one competitor, Bill Bradley, while there were more than a dozen candidates vying for the Republican nomination. Bradley chose to spend major resources in Iowa and changed his position on ethanol subsidies, hoping that an upset of Gore there will propel him to a win in New Hampshire. Unfortunately for Bradley, he couldn't match the Gore team's organization in Iowa, and he had no momentum going into New Hampshire after a lost. After Iowa, that race was essentially over. Meanwhile, John McCain ignored Iowa completely. At the time, he was still polling in the low single digits. In a candidate forum in Iowa, McCain told the crowd that he was against ethanol subsidies and that he wasn't going to change his vote just to win Iowa. While he didn't win any votes for Iowa, that certainly made him stood out to the rest of the country. McCain concentrated on New Hampshire, and pulled off the upset. While he went on to lose South Carolina two weeks later, that wasn't because of his lost in Iowa. Because of how liberal Iowa Democrats are, abandoning Iowa probably works best for a moderate candidate who has no chance of finishing top 3 anyway. Dick Gephardt is an exception because of his history in Iowa, so that leaves John Edwards and Lieberman. Hopefully one of them will come out against ethanol subsidies and employ this strategy. UPDATE Grrrrrrr ... I see that Kevin Drum and his commenters already made all the points I made ... |
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